Got a letter from Nav Canada today, that turned out to be an invoice…
It seems that just for the pure joy of owning a general aviation aircraft in Canada, and on the off chance that you may one day need to talk to an air traffic controller, they charge you a yearly fee of $68.00+HST.
Not too bothered by the invoice, just one of those things that would have been nice to know ahead of time…
Well, after a few months of going back and forth, I’ve finally come up with the new layout for the dash!
All the instruments are what the plane came with except for the new COM, TXPR, GPS, and the Hobbs. Reason for the Hobbs is that the one on the tach is erroneous at best and I’m getting tired of stop-watching each flight…
The reason for the new COM and TXPR is that the existing TXPR is dead and I fly right under two terminal areas and right up against the Can/US border, so to go pretty much anywhere, I need mode-C. The existing COM is ancient, and sits by my right hip. When I pull out the existing TXPR and COM I’ll have two great map pockets 🙂
On the left of this panel, the fuel display and associated switch lets me see each of the three tanks. Radios are straight forward as mentioned above. The PTT is for the intercom as a VOX intercom is not the best for open-cockpit flying… The radio PTT is thumb operated on the stick of course.
On the center panel, the AUX is a cigarette lighter type jack for powering the GPS (AERA 550). There’s a second jack under the seat for trickle-charging the battery. I’m moving the mic/phone jacks to the dash, right now they are also under the seat and my legs are putting pressure on them. There is the dual control fuel pump switch (fuel transfer pumps to the header tank), and the boost pump. I’m adding a boost pump indicator light. Breakers are to the right of the slip indicator.
The right side of the panel is pretty straight forward.
I wanted all the in-flight stuff set up for the left hand so I can keep my right hand on the stick as much as possible while in flight (thought it flies very well hands off, very light and pleasant to fly). I’m still debating moving the starter button to the void on the left panel so that I have one hand on the mags and the other on the starter (where I can quickly drop down to the throttle quadrant if needed).
Our customs decal arrived today!
Living right on the border, we plan to fly into Washington and Oregon state a few times each year. I read up quite a bit about the EAPIS stuff and applied for our 2012 decal.
Some the EAPIS rules seems restrictive and intimidating, and I’m sure the first time we actually do a cross-border flight there will be a few bumps, but having a couple more hoops shouldn’t stop folks from heading across the border when they want.
Rich returned the plug-welded pitot tube, so we got it installed and tested today.
Works perfectly now. We applied pressure, sealed it off and it still held the indicated speed one-hour later!
Thanks again Rich!
Got my hands on the engine manuals I wanted today! These are for the Lycoming O-290-D that came in the airplane. It only had 80hrs since overhaul, so it should have a lifetime of service ahead of it 🙂